Seeing as how SchumacherH8ter has his thread(s) for his collection of the Best Movies of All Time, I realized I'd just finished updating and cleaning up my collection, and extending the scope as far back as I intend to go. That is, back to 1940. Seeing as my old thread is obsolete, was limited in scope, and has long since been buried, I took Vits on his recommendation to start a new one. Plus, there may be new posters in the past 2-3 years who're getting their first taste of mine. I now have 2560 good films and 560 bad ones, 2000 dating back before New Millennium's Day (Jnr. 1, 2000) and 560 good and 560 bad dating after Y2K. Seeing as how I've already got Microsoft Word and PDF documents where these can be stored (but not attached to this forum, as that would require lifting a protection against killer internet viruses), I could transcribe them here. If there's any particular thing I'd like to hear from you in the commentary, it would be which of the lists was your favorite, and what should've been #1. But I need all the commentary I can get, so don't stop short. My lists are divided year by year, and can easily be transcribed. In this first post, I'll include the Ancient Top 20 Movies of '940 through the Ancient Top 20 Movies of '944.

'940

20 The Blue Bird '940

19 Road to Singapore

18 The Long Voyage Home

17 Strike Up the Band

16 All This and Heaven Too

15 The Mark of Zorro [remake]

14 My Favorite Wife

13 Waterloo Bridge

12 Foreign Correspondent

11 The Thief of Bagdad

10 The Letter

9 The Sea Hawk [remake]

8 Pinocchio

7 Fantasia

6 His Girl Friday

5 The Shop Around the Corner

4 The Grapes of Wrath

3 The Great Dictator

2 The Philadelphia Story

1 Rebecca

'941

20 The Devil and Miss Jones

19 The Devil and Daniel Webster

18 Sun Valley Serenade

17 Penny Serenade

16 They Died With Their Boots On

15 Meet John Doe

14 Shadow of the Thin Man

13 Topper Returns

12 That Hamilton Woman

11 Here Comes Mr. Jordan

10 Suspicion

9 The Lady Eve

8 Dumbo

7 Ball of Fire

6 Sullivan's Travels

5 The Little Foxes

4 How Green Was My Valley

3 Sergeant York

2 The Maltese Falcon

1 Citizen Kane

'942

20 The Shanghai Gesture

19 You Were Never Lovelier

18 The Black Swan

17 King's Row

16 Road to Morocco

15 For Me and My Gal

14 The Major and the Minor

13 The Palm Beach Story

12 Woman of the Year

11 The Talk of the Town

10 The Magnificent Ambersons

9 Bambi

8 Now, Voyager

7 Random Harvest

6 To Be or Not to Be

5 Yankee Doodle Dandy

4 The Pride of the Yankees

3 Holiday Inn

2 Mrs Miniver

1 Casablanca

'943

20 The Human Comedy

19 Stage Door Canteen

18 Stormy Weather

17 So Proudly We Hail!

16 Destination Tokyo

15 Five Graves to Cairo

14 The Gang's All Here

13 Girl Crazy '943

12 Air Force

11 In Which We Serve

10 For Whom the Bell Tolls

9 Lassie Come Home

8 Cabin in the Sky

7 Heaven Can Wait

6 The More the Merrier

5 Sahara

4 Phantom of the Opera '943

3 The Ox-Bow Incident

2 The Song of Bernadette

1 Shadow of a Doubt

'944

20 A Guy Named Joe

19 Hollywood Canteen

18 Here Come The Waves

17 Up In Arms

16 Hail the Conquering Hero

15 Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo

14 The Fighting Seabees

13 The Fighting Sullivans

12 The Uninvited

11 Cover Girl

10 The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

9 Since You Went Away

8 Going My Way

7 Lifeboat

6 To Have and Have Not

5 Gaslight

4 Arsenic and Old Lace

3 Laura

2 Meet Me In St Louis

1 Double Indemnity

Next up: Ancient Top 20 Movies of '945 through Ancient Top 20 Movies of '949

OK, how do you choose the rankings of these? Films like Bicycle Thieves, The Searchers, La Dolce Vita, Breathless, and 8 1/2 are listed below films that are far less regarded. The Heiress is ahead of Bicycle Thieves? The Court Jester ahead of The Searchers? The Parent Trap ahead of Breathless? Breakfast At Tiffany's ahead of Breathless and La Dolce Vita? Charade ahead of 8 1/2? The films listed ahead of them are good (the two Audrey Hepburn films are on my Best Movies Ever list), but ahead of those films?

To SchumacherH8ter: It's a long story, but I'll try to sum it up as best I can. When I compiled these lists, I factored in the Top 10 highest grossing films of the year, Rotten Tomatoes approval ratings, and award accolades from the OSCARs, Golden Globes, and BAFTA awards. A higher box office ranking, more accolades (especially for Best Picture), and higher approval ratings equated to more points. Usually, the one that scores the highest gets the title of #1.

Now begins my collection of the best movies of the Silver Seventies. This is the earliest decade in which a Top 40 list could be compiled for each year. Here are the Retro Top 40 Movies of '970 and '971.

Continuing with '976 and '977. I will post these two years at a time until I get to the New Millennium. Starting with '000, there's a Top 40 and a Bottom 40, so I'll only put up the post-Y2K lists one by one.

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